I am a Tax Partner in WithumSmith+Brown’s National Tax Service Group and the founding father of the firm's Aspen, Colorado office. I am a CPA licensed in Colorado and New Jersey, and hold a Masters in Taxation from the University of Denver. My specialty is corporate and partnership taxation, with an emphasis on complex mergers and acquisitions structuring. In the past year, I co-authored CCH's "CCH Expert Treatise Library: Corporations Filing Consolidated Returns," was awarded the Tax Adviser's "Best Article Award" for a piece titled "S Corporation Shareholder Compensation: How Much is Enough?" and was named to the CPA Practice Advisor's "40 Under 40."

In my free time, I enjoy driving around in a van with my dog Maci, solving mysteries. I have been known to finish the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in less than 7 minutes, only to go back and do it again using only synonyms. I invented wool, but am so modest I allow sheep to take the credit. Dabbling in the culinary arts, I have won every Chili Cook-Off I ever entered, and several I haven’t. Lastly, and perhaps most notably, I once sang the national anthem at a World Series baseball game, though I was not in the vicinity of the microphone at the time.

One Man's Marching Orders For The Next President

BOCA RATON, FL - OCTOBER 22: U.S. President Barack Obama (C) greets Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (L) as moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS looks on prior to their debate at the Keith C. and Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center at Lynn University on October 22, 2012 in Boca Raton, Florida. The final presidential debate before election day on November 6th focuses on foreign policy. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

After today a few painful months of fervent litigation, we’ll know our next President. And whether the task falls to Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, the country is in need of some fixin’. A class war is brewing, gas prices are skyrocketing, and for reasons I can’t quite comprehend, grape-flavored Slurpees remain in shockingly short supply.

Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about the ways of the world to offer up a solution to any of those problems. I do, however, know a bit about tax policy, and I think we can all agree that our tax law is desperately in need of an overhaul. To that end, I offer up five recommendations to our next Commander in Chief:

1. Lower individual tax rates: It’s time for the next POTUS to reduce the top personal tax rate to below 30%. My motivations aren’t selfish; rather, I don’t want to see my tax bill — or the bill of anyone else, for that matter — reduced at all. Instead, these decreased tax rates would be offset through base broadening — the elimination of countless deductions and preferences — that would provide the type of revenue-neutral tax reform that we so desperately need.

2. Eliminate deductions: With special interest groups and Congressionsal gridlock being what they are, this is more of a fantasy than a legitimate request, but it’s my fantasy darn it, and seeing that it’s the only one that doesn’t prominently feature Natalie Portman, I’m going to run with it here on Forbes.

The only way we could reduce personal rates below 30% and not drive our deficit to the point where we’d become a de facto province of the Chinese empire is to take a red pen to the Code and start slashing deductions. And I’m not just referring to the useless, $250-deduction-for-teachers type provisions that serve only to add text to the statute and make tax return preparation more of a hassle; I want the big ones gone. The mortgage interest deduction. State and local taxes. Charitable contributions. Get rid of everything, because quite frankly, we won’t need them with the reduction in the tax rates.

Practitioners and taxpayers long for simplicity in the tax law. While I may be taking food off my table by writing this, the ideal tax system is one in which everyone would be able to confidently prepare their own tax return, and from where we stand today, we’d have to pare down about 50,000 pages of the Code before we reach that point.

3. Keep things progressive: As the Tax Policy Center’s analysis of Mitt Romney’s tax plan revelaed, it can be very difficult to accomplish my first and second wishes without greatly benefiting those taxpayers earning in excess of $250,000 and punishing those earning less than the threshold. But where Romney’s plan falls short is it refuses to increase the preferential rates currently afforded long-term capital gains and qualified dividends.

If you want to pay for reduced rates in a way that doesn’t shift the tax burden to the middle class, these rates have to be on the table. Argue all you want about these lower rates promoting investment and encouraging growth, but I’ve got to be able to score my tax plan without considering growth. That means in order to make things revenue neutral while keeping reform progressive, the next President will have to take aim at a preference that largely benefits the wealthy and raise the capital gains and dividends rates to 25%.

4. Eliminate the AMT: The alternative minimum tax is the cute little pet baby alligator that grows up to consume the entire suburban family stupid enough to own it.

Enacted by Congress in 1969, the AMT is parallel tax system that was originally designed to prevent a small number of wealthy taxpayers with significant deductions from gaming the system and paying no income tax. Rather than simply doing away with the deductions that caused the problems and reforming the rates to maintain progressivity, Congress thought a much more convoluted solution was just what the doctor ordered, adding an additional layer of complexity that has plagued the tax system since its inception.

Due to 1) a combination of the declining regular tax rates, and 2) the fact that Congress failed to have the foresight to index the AMT exemption for inflation, the reach of the AMT has now significantly outgrown its intended target. While originally aimed at a whopping 155 taxpayers who paid no income tax — yes, you read that right…155 — the AMT now affects over 4,000,000 taxpayers annually. Making matters worse, in the event Congress fails to continually “patch” the AMT by increasing the exemption, the number of taxpayers exposed to the additional tax would explode to over 32,000,000 annually, reaching well into the middle class.

Understand one thing, however. The AMT does not exist to simplify the Code, it exists because of the complexity of the Code. With the proper combination of rate reductions and eliminated deductions, the AMT would no longer have a purpose, and could mercifully reach its end.

5. Make S Corporation flow-through income subject to self-employment tax. Courtesy of Revenue Ruling 59-221, income earned by an S corporation and allocated among its shareholders is not subject to self-employment tax. This is particularly notable because the rules are different for general partners in a partnership and most LLC members; for these owners, flow-through income from the partnership or LLC is subject to self-employment tax.

This disparate treatment gives rise to one of the more prominent planning opportunities currently available in the Code — the ability of an S corporation employee/shareholder to forego compensation in exchange for tax-free distributions in order to avoid payroll taxes. Perceived abuses of this planning opportunity have attracted the ire of the IRS and clogged the courts since the Ruling was issued in 1959.

Painful as it may be, it’s time to do away with Revenue Ruling 59-221. There is no compelling reason for partnerships and S corporations to be treated differently in this regard, so let’s spare the time of everyone — the IRS, the courts, and those tax advisers that must pore over half a century of case history in order to accurately set a shareholder’s “reasonable” compensation — and repeal the ruling once and for all.

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